Shuttlecock



1956 SAMETZ ET AL 2,734,746

SHUTTLECOCK I Filed March 11, 1952 ATTORNEY United States PatentSHUTTLECOCK 6 Louis Sametz and Irving Sametz, Westport, Conn.,assig'nors to Louis Sametz, Inc., Westport, Conn., a corporation of NewYork Application March 11, 1952, Serial No. 275,916 1 2 Claims. (Cl.273-106) This invention relates to shuttlecocks such as the projectilepopularly called a bird in the game of badminton.

Shuttlecocks must be extremely light in weight to keep down the distanceof their flight. They have a nose piece or leading end' that is usuallymade of cork for extreme lightness in indoor play but which may be madeof slightly heavier sponge rubber or other resilient cellular materialto give a slightly greater weight needed to counteract air currents inoutdoor play. To preserve the required lightness, that part of ashuttlecock that trails and steadies the flight of its nose end istraditionally composed of preferably overlapping natural feathers whoseshafts converge toward their points of junction with thenose piece. Inits elementary form and by dictionary definition a shuttlecock is a corkstuckwith feathers.

Real bird feathers of uniform selected size and quality and thehandicraft involved in assembling them with a cork nose piece make theconventional shuttlecock objectionably expensive and fragile. It hasbeen proposed to substitute for natural feathers various artificial.flaring structures of equivalent light weight, such as a thin walledperforate shell forming a frusturn-like trailing skirt fixed to the nosepiece of the shuttlecock.

Problems are encountered in attempts to devise a sulficiently lightweight means of assembling such artificial skirt with a simple body ofcork with such structural strength that the assemblage will withstandrepeated shocks of battering by battledores such as the modern strandedbadminton racket. Lack of successful solution to this problem has leadto dispensing with natural cork to form the nose piece and tosacrificing the superior performance of cork to the use of artificialstructures as substitutes. For example it has been proposed to prolong aconical skirt of plastic material into a hollow thimble of the samematerial intended to serve as a nose piece. 0

A nose end so constructed does not have the peculiarresilient propertiesof cork nor does it give the desired performance in rebounding from theracket. The trajectory of shuttlecocks so made is erraticandunsatisfactory to skilled players. Also the plastic thimble willcrack and lacks durability in service. a A principal object of thisinvention is to solve the long troublesome problem of'attaining durablesimplicity and low cost and dependability in the assemblage of a corknose piece with a plastic trailing. skirt ina shuttlecock. so

A specific object is to maintain essential lightness of weight in theoverall structure of the shuttlecock without depending on the permanenceor bonding power of adhesive to withstand blows of the racketthat tendsto disrupt the assembled relationship of the cork nose piece and theplastic trailing skirt. Y

A further object is to'retain the use' of a plain contoured body ofnatural cork for the nose piece, on which body a minimum or no machiningor contour forming operation need be formed to adapt it for assemblagebecause it is difficult and costly to tool natural cork into accurately7 dimensioned shapes.

ice

A contributary object is to so 'restrainthe cork relatively to theplastic skirt, particularly in the direction in which the nose piecereceives its blows from the racket, that' the res'ulti'ngimpact tendsonly to squeeze the cork against a solid plastic backing rather than toloosen the cork from adhesive bonding to the skirt.

These and other objects of the invention will appear in full particularfrom the following description of illustrative embodiments of theinvention having reference to the accompanying drawings wherein:

Fig. l is an elevation of a shuttlecock embodying thepresent'imp'rov'ements shown partly in outline and partly 'in section ona diamet'ral plane, a part of its pattern of skirt perforations beingshown sketchily.

Fig. 2 is a plan view'of the shuttlecock of Fig. 1 showing its conicalskirt in outline with the pattern of the skirt perforations and the nosepiece retaining disc omitted.

Fig. 3 is an exploded view of parts of the shuttlecock shown in Figs. 1and 2', taken in section on the plane 33 in Fig. 2 with the pattern ofskirt perforations omitted.

Figs. v4 to 7, inclusive, are enlarged fragmentary detail views takenrespectively on section lines correspondingly numbered in" Fig. 3looking in the direction of the arrows.

Fig. 8 is an enlarged fragmentary view of the pattern of perforations inthe shell wall of the trailing skirt.

Figs. 9 and 10 are respectively assembled and exploded fragmentary viewsof a modified construction of shuttlecock shown' partly in section onadiametral plane.

. Figs. 11 and 12 are respectively assembled and exploded fragmentaryviews of a still different" construction of shuttlecock shown partly insection on a diametral plane.

Figs. 13 and 14 are respectively assembled and exploded fragmentaryviews of a shuttlecock for outdoor play having a self anchoring body ofresilient cellular material substituted for thecork and shown partly insection on a diametral plane.

A preferred embodiment of the present improvements is shown in Figs.1-7', inclusive, wherein the composite nose piece 12 that is shownassembled in Fig. 1 and disassembled in Fig. 3, includes a strikablebody of natural cork having n'otooled recesses nor projections in itssurface contour. As usual the cork 12 may carry a thin leather covering13 forming a flexible wear skin all over its exposed surface which is ofa cylindrical merging into semi-spherical contour.

The bare butt end 14 of the" cork 1 2 fits and isfirmly lodged in asocket'or rabbet afforded by the junction of the peripheral Wall 16 of aring structure 17 with a partition 18 extending crosswise the, inside ofring 17 and perforatcd by the aperture 19. For some of the purposes ofthis invention it is not essential that partition 18 contain anyaperture. Also, instead of being a circularly continuous annularshelf,it may be broken up into a series of circularly spaced flanges orlugs projecting inwardly from ring wall 16. Ring wall 16 surrounds andclosely fits the butt end 14' of the cork 12 where it is bare of theleather covering 13. y At the side of partition 18 opposite from rabbet15 the materialqf the molded plastic ring 17 is extended to form a thinwalled barrel 20 integral with a hollow flaring frustum-like trailingskirt 21 which comprises a circularly continuous thin walled shell 22finely apertured at 23 to produce a pattern closely simulating, thedisposition of barbs in a real; bird feather. The feather simulatingpattern of perforations is further characterized by alongitudinallycentral shaft 24 in the pattern representation ofeach'feather and these shafts become representations of feather quills26 as they extend toward their points of jointure with the barrel 20.The shafts 24 and quills 26 converge and increase in cross sectionalsize and flexural strength as they approach barrel 20 as is shown inFigs. 4 to 7, inclusive.

The preferred pattern of perforation shown in enlarged detail in'Figs. 1and 8 is new with'these improvements and will be noted to feature apredominance of elongate apertures 23 disposed at one angle ofinclination in comparison with the relatively shorter extent ofapertures slanting in the opposite direction. This is believed to exerta steadying torque effect of spin inducing nature on the skirt 21 duringflight of the shuttlecock through the air.

In the construction above described the seating of the flat end of cork12 against partition 18 while the rim of the cork is closely encompassedby the ring wall 16 does away with any dependence for permanence andstrength on adhesive bonding of the nose piece 12 to the skirt 21 towithstand the shocks of impact of the racket or battledore against thenose piece. Such blows would otherwise tend forcibly to drive the corktoward the skirt and disrupt its assembled relationship.

While not greatly depended on for mechanical reinforeement againstimpact by the battledore, there may be employed in addition to thestrikable cork body 12 of the nose piece a disk 25 comprising a head anda boss of less compass outstanding therefrom for retaining the strikablecork body in the rabbet and that seats on the top portion of partition18 and projects in certain forms of the invention shown in Figs. 1, 3,11 and 12 through aperture 19 into surface contact with the strikablebody of cork 12. Thus if desired an adhesive may be applied between thebottom surface of the boss of disk and the top surface of cork 12 to aidin the retention of the cork Within the rabbet 15. The porous nature ofa cork surface enables cork to be bonded to cork more securely than to asmooth surfaced molded plastic wherefore it will be of advantage to makeretaining disc25 also of cork.

Figs. 9 and 10 show a modification of the structure wherein a boss onthe strikable body of cork 31 projects through the aperture 19 inpartition 18 and thus reaches into surface contact with a plain flatform of cork retaining body or disk 32 which may be cemented to the corknose piece as proposed in Fig. 3.

Figs. l1 and 12 show a further modification wherein a recess 35 isformed in the strikable body of cork 36 in registry with aperture 19 andthe cork retaining body or disk 37 carries a boss 38 that reaches downthrough the aperture 19 and fits into the cork recess 35 to which it maybe cemented with exceptional holding power by a suitable adhesive.

The retaining disks 25, 32, and 37 may be of other suitable light weightmaterial than cork, such as molded preferably porous plastic, andparticularly for outdoor play any one of the nose pieces 12, 31 and 36may be made of very light artificial material having the properresilience to rebound properly from a racket such as a light weightgrade of vulcanized molded sponge rubber or a suitable porous plasticmaterial possessing a proper degree of resilience.

However, if the nose piece is to be made of sponge rubber or a porousplastic of high elasticity and toughness enabling considerabledistortion in shape without tearing or taking a permanent set, I preferto shape the nose piece like the sponge rubber body 40 in Figs. 13 and14. Here an annular groove 41 is flanked by a disparts of theshuttlecock easily disassembled by merely pulling them apart. The sameprinciple of sturdiness afforded by these improvements is here likewiseinvolved, in that the nose piece 40 is positively backed up by seatingdirectly on the partition 18. Here also the outer cylindrical surface ofring 17 can be made to fall flush with the outer surface of the spongerubber nose piece 40 by forming an annular shoulder 42 on the latter.Where sponge rubber is used as the nose piece the leather covering 13will not be necessary because the cellular structure of sponge rubberbecomes closed by a tough solid skin of the same material in the processof expanding and vulcanizing it in a mold.

I prefer to form the integral trailing skirt 21 and cork holding,partitioned ring 17 as an injection molding of polyethylene or nylon, orother tough, lightweight, resilient and flexible water resistant moldedplastic such as ethyl cellulose or polyvinyl chloride. Cellulose nitrateand vinylidine chloride resins have some of the properties desirable inthis kind of article.

The appended claims are directed to and intended to cover allequivalents and substitutes for the particular specification andarrangement of parts herein proposed as shall come within the broadestfair interpretation of the claim language.

We claim:

1. A shuttlecock comprising a nose piece, and a hollow thin walledfrustum-like trailing skirt skeletonized by a pattern of perforations,comprising a circular series of approximately parallel narrow slots ofshape and dis position to radiate in oppositely slanting directions fromrespectively opposite sides of circularly spaced converging axes, saidslots on one side of each of said axes being substantially longer thanthe slots on the opposite side of the same axis thereby to admit lessair through the aggregate slots of one slanting disposition than throughthe aggregate slots of the other slanting disposition, wherebyaerodynamic torque is produced tending to rotate the shuttlecock as itflies through the air.

2. A shuttlecock including in combination a nose piece comprising ahomogeneous uniformly resilient body of solid cork contoured to form abluntly rounded strikable end portion whose surface merges into that ofa substantially cylindrical opposite end portion of said body of corkterminating in a plain transverse surface devoid of hollows andprojections, a trailing skirt of homogeneous plastic material comprisinga flaring frustum-like shell having perforate flexible walls convergingtoward and integral with a relatively rigid hollow barrel structure ofsaid material comprising a tubular wall and a transverse internal flangeforming a socket receptive to said cylindrical end portion of said bodyof cork, said flange having one face seated on the annular margin ofsaid plain transverse body surface, and a discal cork retainer for saidnose piece comprising a head overlapping the opposite face of saidflange and a boss of less compass than said head outstanding toward andfastened tortable resilient flange 42 that is capable of yieldingdistortively so that it can be forced through the aperture 19 inpartition 18. Thus the internal edge of the partition comes to occupyand snugly fit the groove 41 whereupon considerable resistance isoffered to pulling the nose piece 40 out of the rabbet 15 when it hasonce been lodged therein. This does away with any need for a retainingdisk such as 25, 32 or 37 and makes the two to said plain transversesurface of said body of cork.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS D.163,367 Carlton May 22, 1951 1,393,407 Tenney Oct. 11, 1921 2,338,274Yancey Jan. 4, 1944 2,485,420 Timpe Oct. 18, 1949 2,556,029 Cohan June5, 1951 FOREIGN PATENTS 645,014 Great Britain Oct. 25, 1950 476,373Canada Aug. 28, 1951

